With any goods of the soul, the more abundant it is, the more useful it must be.
                                                                                  Aristotle, Politics

The Winchester Whisperer was created and circulated in secret by conscientious objectors held in the prison there during the First World War. The last remaining copy in this country, Issue 6, dates from December 1918 and is held in Friends House (the Quaker Centre) in London. Too fragile now to be handled by the public, you can still view it on microfiche in the library. Its poems, including a translation of Sappho’s ‘Evening’, its religious debates and essays and chess problems were all written down, and its artwork drawn, on lavatory paper. The whole was then bound ‘in a bit of mailbag canvas’ – sewing up hessian postbags for six to ten hours per day was one of the tasks assigned to this category of prisoner.

The publication is usually seen as testimony to the resilience of those who put it together, their transcendence of severe privations. The editorial of this issue, for example, chirpily aims to ‘keep our readers better informed of current events, latest arrivals and the newest release rumours’ – even in December 1918, that the Armistice would bring freedom could not be assumed.

Its minute attention to aesthetic detail, though, the careful imitation of Kelmscott printing with which it begins, say, suggests purposes that ran deeper than a morale boost. The use of whatever materials came to hand make it a surprisingly close match with much more recent ...